The Budget Unpacked: Complexity, compliance and the cost of change

Speaker A: This episode is brought to you by Zoho. Zoho offers over 65 applications for every function of a business and the one to know is the Finance Suite. It's a cloud based, making tax digital ready platform that helps practices and their clients stay compliant as UK tax rules evolve. Zoho Practice, the ultimate practice management solution for firms, is absolutely free for all accounting, bookkeeping and tax advisory practices in the uk. Your clients can use Zoho Books, their accounting and tax compliance solution for free too, including sole traders and landlords with filing included. Zoho Payroll is the latest addition to the suite and the best part is all of them are natively integrated. Thanks to Zoho for empowering businesses and finance leaders across the globe. Hello and welcome to a Budget special podcast looking at the announcements made in Chancellor John Healey's inaugural outing to the Dispatch box. I'm joined today by Prashant Ganthi, Vice President of Global Product Strategy Development and Alliances, Enterprise Finance Suite at Zoho. Hello, Prashant, how are you? I'm doing great, Matt, how are you? Very well, very well, thank you. And also by Robin Milstead, Director of Tax at lka, Chartered Accountants and founder of Accountants Therapy. How are you doing, Robin?

Speaker B: I think I'm doing like everybody else in this industry, very tired. A late night reading through the project?

Speaker A: Yes, well, I should say we are recording the morning after. So, uh, a double thank you, I suppose, for joining me so soon after the announcement. And while it was perhaps lacking a big ticket announcement, but there not being many rabbits pulled out of any hats, there's still plenty to discuss. Still plenty to discuss. So, Robin, we'll get into the details shortly. But what was the overall reaction to the budget? You sat there watching it. Uh, what are those kind of instant, instant feelings that you're having?

Speaker B: For me, I think the biggest surprise was just how much there was in the budget. I was really expecting there to be not much going on, not much for us to digest, but exactly what you've said. There doesn't seem to be one really big ticket item. Sure, we'll come on to the rises in, uh, property and savings tax, but other than that, it felt like lots of little bitty bits that were actually quite significant in their own ways, but not the headline grabbers that I think this year there wasn't a lot released beforehand that's been unusual. And now that there was really quite so much in there has left a lot of people going, oh, okay, there is stuff to learn.

Speaker A: Do you have a preference when it comes to budget. Do you prefer those, those ones that we've just had where there's a lot of little announcements, or would you rather have kind of less across the board, but that one big, big hitter?

Speaker B: That's such a good question, I think. Oh, I think I would probably prefer one big hitter to get, get one's mind around. But it depends what that big hitter is, isn't it? If it was the scrapping of mtd, I would have been quite happy. But unfortunately that isn't one of the announcements. But I assume Prashant wouldn't feel the same on mtd. But it. Yeah, I, I think most of us just despair at the amount of complexity there is in the system and every time that we have a budget it seems that complexity is added. And that is quite distressing at the moment.

Speaker A: How is it for you Prashant? You watching the budget? What are those, what are those immediate feelings during and afterwards?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think I had to agree with Robin that there are no big headline grabbers here, but uh, the devil is in the details. Uh, so what Robin mentioned about mtds, right. Uh, if you delve little deeper, uh, there are a couple of things. One, it sets a uh, direction in which the tax management is going to move. Uh, so I read something like HMRC can dip into your bank account and uh, take out any overdue amounts. It has widened the push pool of taxpayers to which it can do it. It was kind of a uh, lot more restrictive so far. So that's going to be. That's going to change. And uh, there's a lot more uh, investment and uh, expectations around digitization. Uh, so uh, that's going to come around. For example, um, even the, the online marketplaces, right, they need to collect taxes from. Uh, until now it's only for overseas, uh, overseas sellers. Now it's uh, it that that pool also has been widened. So if you take that one. So there's uh, that's a directional thing. So that's going to be normalized. Uh, a uh, lot more digitization is coming around. Uh, so HMRC will expect uh, continuous, uh. Uh, like it's not. I mean it's uh. You see with mtd, the direction has already. This stage has already set that's going to uh, move further and further in that direction. The second thing that I see is there was mention about AI, uh, so I think uh, something like £700 million. Uh, I'm not sure I'm getting the number right. Robin can correct me if I'm wrong, but uh, there is £700 million that is going to be invested in AI. So, um, but that's chump change compared to what our friends on the other side of the Atlantic are investing. Uh, so there's something like sovereign AI Fund, but the details are a, uh, little, uh, yet to come. Is, uh, because what do we mean by sovereign AI? Are we talking about, uh, funds towards development of local, uh, AI models? Is it, uh, data residency that we are talking about? We need more details on that. So these are the two things. One is, uh, uh, tax digitization. That's going to be, uh. There's going to be more and more on that. Um, and then, uh, there's a mention of invoicing as well. So we need to be ready for that and then on AI.

Speaker A: Well, let's start unpacking some of it then, because there's plenty to. There's plenty to go through. Again, not as. Not as much big ticket announcements like we said, but plenty of unpacking all the same. Be it a rise in the bank surcharge, a new founders Relief, increases to the national living and minimum wages, stronger HMRC powers like you've said there, Prashant, are of course an extension of the late submission penalty for soft landing to those joining MTD in April 2027. I can see you nodding along there, Robin.

Speaker B: Very, very happy about that.

Speaker A: Yes. No, I can imagine. I can imagine. That was one of those hidden in the details, wasn it? So, as our tax aficionado, what do you think the most notable changes were that the Chancellor announced?

Speaker B: Oh, as we've already mentioned, the thought of the savings and property rate going up by not just the 2% that we already knew about, but an additional 2%. And um, that's straight away from April 2027. That's got to be the headliner for me. Um, that is a significant change of 4% rise for savers and uh, rental property owners. Definitely. This was a budget centering on people with assets rather than people with income. In fact, the budget itself said that. I think that's the biggest announcement of all. And again, all the little bits behind it were the interesting little bits. We'll see headlines across the business Asset Disposal Relief and the new Founders Relief. But that's a really great example of devil in the detail, particularly on Founders Relief because you're already seeing on social media people posting, wow, we've looked at the detail and basically no one's ever going to qualify for this because the rules, so very niche and so very ambitious.

Speaker A: Well, which one of the. One of the things that came up, of course, HMC getting more power is, I think, whenever HMC gets medicines in a budget, my ease prick up a little bit. How do you feel about that one, Robin? The fact that they are going to be a bit of a cash injection, really, to be able to do some more of the things that they hope to do?

Speaker B: Well, this is not an unusual thing to announce in a budget. Every year that I remember, there's been more investment for HMRC powers and more compliance officers. It was 670 new compliance officers announced in the budget. Are we seeing the results of that? Uh, at the moment? There's been previous budgets that increase the amount of compliance officers. I'm not sure that many of us are seeing that increase in what we would expect to be inquiries at the moment. But it does make us nervous, doesn't it? Because what is the result of this? The only result is that you're going to have more inquiries. So, again, with all the changes that are happening, can understand why industry feels a little bit wobbly at the moment because there could be more. More cha. Not changes, but more inspection, more admin.

Speaker A: Let's look at what it means in practice, then. You know, you spoke at the start about complexity and it is a very complex tax system. Is this going to ease things slightly or. And I feel like I know the answer to this question, is it going to add a little bit more complexity?

Speaker B: I think you should answer that

Speaker A: question.

Speaker B: It's going to. It adds complexity, doesn't it? There's not a lot of. One thing that really struck me with this budget, uh, was that a lot of the measures, there's not a lot of room to maneuver quickly. So I don't think that there's an awful lot of active advice to be had off the back of this budget that obviously there's always bits of advice that can come, but in previous budgets, sometimes it's been, oh, goodness, we really need to look at the way that directors are drawing income from a limited company or, oh, I've got clients with lots of, um, shares and they need to sell quickly or things like that. And I don't think that there's an awful lot of that kind of thing coming off of the back of the budget. Instead, it's. I'm going to use a word that Emma M. Rawson, obe, says a lot tinkering. It's a lot of tinkering with the system. And the tinkering is another way of saying a lot of added complexity. Because when we're layering things on we might turn what could have been a fairly simple, uh, concept into something where you're going, yeah, okay, well, this is the basic concept, but in these circumstances, that doesn't apply. It becomes more and more like vat. Right. The VAT system works exactly like that. That. Oh, but if this. Then actually you do that. MTD is definitely going that way with some of the things that were announced in the budget. And I think that we can see elements of that in the wider tax system every time we have a budget, unfortunately.

Speaker A: Well, before we come on to which elements of this people need to be paying a lot of attention to, I want to ask both of you. Prashant, let's start with you. Was there anything that you perhaps expected to get announced that didn't. Was there anything missing?

Speaker C: Uh, I think, uh, see, the expectation was there's going to be plenty of tinkering. Is, uh, that's what I expected because the legroom is not much. And, uh, from the beginning, the expectation was this is not going to be a big bang, uh, budget. Uh, uh, there's not going to be. Even if you take. It's not too surprising. But if you take, uh, labor history, budgets of labor, uh, uh, uh, Chancellors in the past. Right. There were some exciting stuff. For example, in 1966, James Calignan, uh, came up with the selective employment tax to wean away employees from, uh, services to manufacturing. So we don't see such exciting stuff in budgets nowadays. Robin, you agree?

Speaker B: I'm not sure I want that kind of excitement. Thank you.

Speaker C: So I think, see, largely if you take. Right. The goal is to pay the government bills to tax receipts rather than borrowing. So when you say tax receipts, either you increase the tax rates, you tinker, uh, here or there to generate some, uh, uh, extra revenue. Uh, uh. Or you have to widen the tax pool. So to widen the tax pool, uh, you need to invest in systems and processes so that people don't, uh, evade taxes. So. Or, uh, I think that's where we are. Uh, that's the direction in which we are moving. So I think, uh, the investment in HMRC, uh, even I think from 2028, VAT and Payee Direct debit might be mandatory. Things like that have already been mentioned in the document. So I think we are moving in that direction.

Speaker A: I know the morning after a budget can often be the busiest for accountants, as clients ask what they need to know once they've gathered their thoughts. So which measures? Robin, looking at the ones that were announced, do you think accountants ought to be flagging first and which can perhaps wait a little longer before getting any attention.

Speaker B: Uh, I think the one that really does need flagging first is the drop in business asset disposal relief. So the drop from a million pound lifetime allowance for that down to £500,000. Ultimately, that's the only thing I've really seen that is, uh. Oh, dear. If you've got clients that are closing their businesses, selling their business, that's going to need to expediate if they're in that bracket between the 500,000 and a million. Um, otherwise, of course, we should be flagging the increase to property and savings rates. Uh, there's not really anything that one can do about that. Again, you may look at some planning around incorporating a rental business, you may look at some planning around jointly owned properties, maybe some inheritance tax planning to be done. Um, in any case, inheritance tax planning is something that many people are looking at in advance of, um, pension changes for April 27 anyway. But again, I haven't had any questions from my clients on this budget yet, which is great. Maybe they'll all have 11:30 on the, on the morning after, as we're recording this. But, um, I don't think there was so much that we need to worry about acting now apart from that business asset disposal relief point. And hopefully, unless that's a specialist area that one deals with, you're talking about hopefully only one or two clients that you might be aware of. You're not talking about mass stress in, in, in. In that way. So that's good. I think they'll have a bit of that too much to go. Oh, now I've really got to communicate with the client. Um, it's difficult to communicate with the clients, isn't it, until you've actually been able to read through all the detail. So at this time, after a budget, most of us will have read the headlines, some of us will have dug into some of the bits of detail that we need to, just to get just out of interest or just because we know clients have a specific circumstance that we want to understand. But I think on this one, nobody should be losing sleep too much over those mass emails that need to go to client.

Speaker A: That's a good message. We'll have that the morning after a budget. That's good.

Speaker B: That's good result.

Speaker A: It is, it really is. Uh, let's look at what the budget means for businesses then. Prashant, I want to come to you on this one first. You know, Robin has said there, this isn't something that we want to lose too much Sleep over. Which is a good thing. On the back of some of these announcements, how do you think business owners can start to use their accounting data to perhaps assess whether a planned investment is now affordable rather than making a decision based purely on the tax relief that is available to them?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good question because rarely you don't uh, uh, rarely tax relief does not make a bad investment good. It makes uh, good investment better. So I put it that way. Uh, so now uh, the first step is to, you need to differentiate between tax efficiency and capital allocation. So tax relief tells you how the system treats an investment. It does not tell you whether the system is the best use of scarce cash. Uh, so first is whether you have uh, I mean beyond the budget. Right. It's always good to have great data discipline. Now once you have discipline with regards to data, if your data uh, is great, you are sure about your source of truth, then it comes to four questions. Uh, based on your accounting data, can you fund that investment without creating a liquidity problem? What cash return should it generate? What happens under a downside case? And what else can you do with the same capital? So these are some of the questions that your systems should deliver. And uh, if the budget has some nuggets that can directionally change your investment decisions, you need to uh, it should help you take that decision as well.

Speaker A: And we know Prashant that businesses, they're still facing a lot of pressure on costs. So how can owners model the combined effect of changes such as wage increases which we've touched on and other overheads on their margins?

Speaker C: Yeah, so this is again a very important question. Uh, the first thing is you need to stop modeling cost changes one at a time. Business usually get into trouble through interaction of lot of modest movements. This for example wages can increase. Uh, so I think um, the payroll costs can go up because that's also what the budget says. Right. Uh, energy costs can change. There could be uh, insurance renewals that go higher. Uh, suppliers can increase prices regardless of what happens even because of the budget. Also they can also respond, uh, for example there's an ah, increase in uh, corporation tax surcharge from, for banks that could reflected market uh, rates as well. So the combined impact can be much larger than any one headline percentage. So it's to, you need to model management responses, not just cost increases. What happens if prices rise 2%? Which customer or service lines can absorb that? How much volume could be loose because the price rise becomes counterproductive. So these are the questions that you need to check how much of operating leverage do you have? So basically the system should connect the financial outcome to the operational driver behind it.

Speaker A: Can you start with Robin a little bit about what types of businesses are likely to feel the biggest financial impact on the back of these announcements?

Speaker B: Yeah, probably not businesses, probably individuals in terms of businesses and what Prashant was just speaking through. I think that every time we have a budget, it, it brings us back to the sort of the importance of good bookkeeping or it really makes me think there's a split between people. There are people who um, really want to get every bit of tax positive out of a budget and for them, that good bookkeeping and that visibility of where their figures are and that ability to look at the points that Prashant has just walked talk through about is this actually a genuinely good thing to buy at this time? Should I do that? Ah, um, uh, those people need to have that visibility, need to have that bookkeep good bookkeeping. And actually there were some good things in the budget for them. So, for example, capital allowances for first year allowances have gone up from the 1st of January. So that's one thing that people might change their attitude. They might just delay a little bit for some of those purchases. How, I mean, however, look, I will make the point that the vast majority of agents, um, that I have contact with in my practice role, when was the last time I applied a first year allowance? Everyone gets annual investment allowance on most of their purchases anyway. So for the, for those businesses, we're looking at bigger businesses benefiting. Um, I also think that you have a camp of people that, that, you know, will just weather a budget and therefore the benefits of the good bookkeeping, sometimes the cost of that outweighs the benefit of needing that visibility and wanting to make those decisions and wanting to even spend the time thinking about, should I do this now, should I do it later? Because the 5% difference to them is eaten up by the time that it takes to make any sense out of the difference and they will just then continue with their business without having to sit and spend time working out what the budget means to them. Yeah, I think it's individuals that are going to feel this budget the most, some in good ways. So we heard about, uh, the trading allowance increase. So that's, uh, something I really welcome because very rarely do we find in a budget something that might actually simplify matters, might bring down compliance burden. Um, the trading allowance that was previously £1,000, now £3,000, that means you've got a nice tripling of where people don't need to make, don't need to report, potentially don't need to be bought into self assessment, um, for a small, we'll call it side hustle. It doesn't have to be someone's side hustle. It could be someone's first venture into business or their business because some people do make only £3,000 a year and that's absolutely fine for them. Um, otherwise, people, I think it's people who are going to feel the effects of that, uh, saving and property change. Uh, it's people who will feel the effect, individuals who feel the effect of business asset disposal relief changes. Um, longer term I think we'll see companies affected by change in so much as we have E invoicing coming in from April 29th that was confirmed. And then we also have a corporation tax modernisation consultation that's going to be happening. So that's, I think, when you're going to start to see not only financial changes for companies or maybe no financial changes for company, but certainly, um, changes in the way that they comply and that can have financial consequences.

Speaker A: And the word that keeps coming up on this podcast is change, change. Change is changing and naturally on the back of a budget. And I think staying on top of these changes is where a lot of the focus will be in the immediate aftermath. It's obviously not an event that just changes the numbers on a tax return. It can also change the processes businesses, accountants, individuals need to have in place, from keeping records up to date to making sure the right information gets to HMRC on time. So Prashant, talk to us a little bit about what difference having accurate up to date financial records makes when it comes to meeting these new tax obligations and, uh, spotting errors early. Amid all the change, Robin's already touched on kind of the value of really good quality bookkeeping. So can you speak to that, Prashant? A little bit.

Speaker C: So the difficulty for most small businesses is not simply that the tax changes, uh, it's that different changes take effect on different dates. Uh, for example, uh, uh, my uh, reading tells me that there's going to be a temporary bank surcharge in January 27, April 27, your national living wage changes later part of 2027. There's, uh, some R and D administration simplification whether your business qualify for that or not. So there should be a change calendar connected to your financial forecast. So that I feel is a very critical piece. Uh, from a technology perspective I should, uh, as I keep saying, uh, beyond the budget, uh, first capture data and keep it current, be it bank transactions, invoices, payroll expenses, uh, regardless of whatever transaction, your expenses, liabilities shouldn't live in disconnected systems if the business expects to make timely decisions. Now, uh, you uh, automate all the routine work. So and with AI, there is no excuse for not automating all the routine work. And third, turn your accounting data into forward looking uh, information. So instead of uh, answering what happened last month, you need to have the ability to answer what happens next month if my payroll increases by 4% or customers take more than uh, five days longer to pay or energy costs rise. Because energy costs are fluctuating like anything. Right. So that's a big part of decision making today. Uh, so I think. And uh, so these are important questions that I'd ask.

Speaker A: We mentioned earlier that a notable change was the extension of the late submission penalty soft landing to those joining MTD in April 2027. How could we have a post budget podcast without discussing this? I mean it's obviously big ticket item. We said there wasn't, you know, a big, big ticket item, but for a lot of people this is huge. And you said at the top of the show, Robin, that you were delighted. Can you talk to us a little bit about this, what it might mean and your take on

Speaker B: it? I think you'll have to cut in and stop me talking about it. Everybody knows this is now this is my favorite subject, my hobby, mtd. Um, so yes, I, I was personally very happy about this announcement for two reasons. One, because I had spent the last couple of months saying to people that I would eat my hat, my cat and the doormat if we didn't have a soft landing for the 30,000 cohort. So I don't need to um, ruin my digestion.

Speaker A: Sweet

Speaker B: relief. Yeah, yeah. Um, and also because last year the announcement of the soft landing didn't come in the budget for the 50,000 cohort, it came before the budget in a random email. So I was really happy to see this actually in the budget itself. Um, aside from being happy about it in general anyway, I don't think you could find many people that would feel that the soft landing for MTD for this 30,000 wasn't appropriate. I think we'll get to this time next year and feel the same about the 20,000 if. Oh please, if they have haven't scrapped it by then for the 20,000. But yes, the um, the soft landing gives. And the budget was all about breathing space. It gives a time for breathing. And actually this is the one point of the budget That I think that would be my response. A little bit of breathing space for agents dealing with um, mtd. I had a look at some of the financials behind that and actually for the costs involved to. The cost is relatively low in terms of, uh, soft landing, just delays, penalty, penalty, um, intake for an entire industry to be up to speed, feel more included, be a bit more onside. I think it's worth the costs there for um, hmrc. Yeah, I'm delighted. I don't know how I would cope next year without that, uh, soft landing. And I'm pretty educated on mtd, so I think it gives us a little bit more time for agent education. I think some of the problems that we've seen come out of MTD in the last couple of weeks, uh, particularly with those letters that came out for people who hadn't filed shows more than anything that maybe agent education isn't as great as we would hope it to be. And that's not a slight on our industry. I really don't mean it as a slight. It just means that MTD is very complex for what is meant to be a very simple concept. That those letters, people didn't know how to deal with them sometimes or didn't know how to troubleshoot. And if we're at that point now, how on earth would we cope when the numbers are for many of us doubling for next year? So it's good news. I'm happy about that. They didn't go quite far enough, but

Speaker A: we'll take it. We'll take it and we'll run to the hills is what we'll do. And within that context then of that extension. Prashant, um, can you talk to us a little bit about how software can help accountants get clients ready for MTD without making the transition feel overwhelming? Now that we have this, this information,

Speaker C: Matt, it all comes down to today. The software is available, so people just need to adopt. And uh, so at every price point, I mean for every business complexity, applications are available now I think, uh, we need to uh, see this MTD as a, uh, chance to. It's an opportunity for businesses to modernize their own systems. Uh, obviously you don't have control over uh, uh, what's HMRC going to do or what the tax authorities are going to do. Uh, interestingly, just yesterday my son was reading a biography of Benjamin Franklin and uh, I think the famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin is the only certainty in life is death and taxes. Correct. So we don't have control over what HMRC is going to do. But all we can do is modernize our systems. Use MTD as a uh, nudge, as an opportunity to choose the right system for your business. Ah, ensure deep uh, data discipline, uh, don't have too many disconnected systems and ask whether your systems are helping you. Are they able to answer questions that help your business move forward instead of just helping you look in the rear view mirror.

Speaker A: I was going to say, uh, mention of James Callahan and Benjamin Franklin now in the pod. It's fantastic. It's turning into a real history lesson. Prashant, I'm loving this, absolutely loving it.

Speaker C: I love history. My son does too. Yeah,

Speaker B: can I just make the MTD joke that hopefully MTD will be history too. But at one point on that MTG announcement that was really exciting or for a very short amount of time was really exciting. Um, particularly when we were talking about in, in accountants therapy was that there was a separate bit of announcement to do with um, making tax digital as well. It's the thought that there are certain taxpayers where for which the rollout is delayed essentially. Now many people, and I could see it on social media as well, took that to think that the 20,000 had been, had been postponed or cancelled and there were quite a bit of celebration around that which I found quite amusing. Fun. I quite like this celebration. But um, just to make the point here, anybody seeing that unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for some people, um, it isn't a delay or a cancellation of the 20,000. It's not yet. It's um, more to do with for example taxpayers who are going to be non resident and they won't be able to be bought in. So we'll have an automatic extension of the exemption. More details need to come out on that. That's quite an unclear bit as we're recording. Um, and yeah, unfortunately it doesn't mean a complete scrapping of the 20,000. It's just some very niche circumstances.

Speaker C: I just like to add, uh, so uh, I have been through multiple tax regime changes. Uh, so uh, we have our accounting product, uh, and our ERP accounting, accounting product is available globally. Uh, so in lot of these countries there have been tax regime changes and I can tell you Robin, this is not the most complex change. It all depends on uh, what's your current tax regime and what's being changed. Uh, I was uh, joking that in UAE when tax was introduced for the very first time VAT was introduced, it was like pushing kids to the kindergarten because they had never paid taxes. There was no need for any record keeping at all. In India when GST was introduced. It's like a curriculum change, uh, in uk, it's more like a curriculum change. It's not like kindergarten. Uh, kids being pushed to kindergarten for the first time. They are not seeing the school for the first time.

Speaker B: I don't know. I can cry like a baby sometimes.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, let's, let's end the show with a quick fire question to both of you. Because what we want from people listening to this is obviously as much as we could dive really deep into the details. It could be a three hour episode, it really could. But we've had a really good surface level look at a few things there. But when accountants, when they get back to their desk, what is the first thing that you think they should do that will really set themselves up for success? Robyn, let's start with you.

Speaker B: I'm going to say what should be the obvious thing for me to say, but find people to discuss this with, to find. And, um, obviously I founded a community called Accountants Therapy. I would say come and join us and have that discussion and come in and find people to just bounce ideas off about what actually needs doing. But actually there are other communities out there as well, so professional bodies are a great place to go if you don't understand something. Just make sure that you've done that original bit of reading, whether that's directly from the budget documents or whether you want to catch up with a news agency or your professional body. Make sure the information that you're getting is accurate and then make sure you have a place, particularly if you're a sole trader and on your own, without colleagues to bounce off of, have somewhere to bounce off of.

Speaker C: Yeah, I second what Robin says. Take, uh, professional help. If required, talk to your trusted advisor, trusted accountant, uh, who can, uh, um, help you demystify the budget. Nobody has, uh, the time to go through the entire budget because there are so many little changes. You don't know what's going to impact you. So that's the first thing I would do.

Speaker B: I just want to say the second thing that I would do is just take a step back and remember that budgets are always a bit stressful because as we've said many times, there's lots of change in them. And that can feel quite overwhelming and sometimes one of the negative sides of having lots of information come at you from. And if you're doing the right thing, you're listening to this podcast, you're listening and reading things to do with the budget to be as informed as you can. Sometimes that in itself can work against you. Just take a step back, write. Maybe write yourself a list. This is what I've done. Written myself a list of. These are the main points that, uh, are one, interesting to me or two, relevant to my clients. Jotted down just a little bit of the technical detail there and gone. Okay, well, if anyone asks me, these are the points that I'm interested in that I need to know about, and try and cut out the rest, and then you'll feel a bit better about it. All right,

Speaker A: Wonderful, wonderful. Note to end um on, thank you both so much for joining me today, and a big thanks to Zoho2 for sponsoring this episode. That's all we've got time for. The message seems to be that, uh, while some of these changes are still a way off, now is the time for accountants, businesses and individuals to understand what's coming, get their records in order, and make sure they're ready to act. Until next time. Take care, Bud.